Classical Chess Loses Popularity Under Pressure From Computers

Recently Alexey Dreev has given his views on ‘classical chess v/s rapid chess’ where he favours rapid chess reason being… in his words

“What differs rapid from classical chess? In classical chess 20-30 moves made by the players aren’t their own. Not in every game, but in most of them. The recent encounter Jakovenko – gelfand is the best example of it. Dmitry decided to check his opponent; Boris forgot the theory on 41st move! Classical chess loses popularity under pressure of computers… This process has already started, but not everyone pays enough attention to it. Rapid is more entertaining. You should have preparation, but you don’t have time to learn all that variations by heart! So, the one whose overall chess skills are stronger – wins. I consider this to be fairer. It’s absolutely wrong to think that rapid chess is not objective! Only the strongest wins in it. You may play a classical game against the opponent whose rating is 2200, but who has memorized what Houdini has advised him, while rapid shows who is who immediately. What is more important, in rapid the role of computers goes down!”

Here’s what Dreev answered on a question regarding deepness of his analyses:

“Depends with whom you are comparing. Let’s say, Vishy Anand with his team, or Sergey Karjakin if talking about Russia. Sergey’s preparation is focused on computer preparation. He has assistants who do analyze with the computer. Actually that’s just a huge work, hard labor, hellish work. I’ve done that as long as I’ve been helping different players. Those analyses may be just endless. The main problem is how to memorize all that. At least that’s a problem for me. There are people with exceptional memory who have a huge advantage against others. As Garry Kasparov had once. Well, of course I write down some variants, but only to a definite point in analyses, not to absurdity!”

To criticize or to go with Dreev’s views I am not the proper chess person but here I would like to share an advise which has been by my master GM Nigel Davies that rather than going for deep analysis for searching moves or series of moves with the help of chess engine, it is better to go for soft reasoning to find the good moves in the position. This Advise is specifically, gave me relief as to be honest I do not like to calculate much in those cases this is probably the best method for playing good chess. (My opinion)